


and will you take a life with me?

by cydonic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aggression, Angst, Coda, Cunnilingus, F/F, Oral Sex, Smut, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:59:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5918818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cydonic/pseuds/cydonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has the tools to hurt Lexa. She has survived in the wild long enough, and her blood sings for retribution. In this moment, Clarke knows that Lexa has the tools to destroy her too.</p>
<p>How S03E03 should have ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and will you take a life with me?

The moment between them is so thick and heavy with words unspoken, emotion unexpressed, that Clarke is unable to breathe. In her hand is Lexa’s, her grip fragile and delicate – testing. Clarke feels her own hand twitch, and it aches with a phantom urge: the desire to curl into a fist or a palm and lash out.

Before her is the woman who left her at the base of Mount Weather with a terrible decision to make, that forces her shoulders to roll and hunch with repressed guilt every single day.

Before her is the woman who gave her every space to escape but still left Clarke feeling cornered by her body, pressed against that table and lips a warm kiss on her own.

Before her, on her knees, hand in hers, is a woman begging forgiveness with kohl-rimmed eyes full of fear. And Clarke only knows that it’s fear because she can feel it too, reflected in her own agape mouth and teary vision.

Clarke’s lungs burn, and she slowly, shakily exhales as Lexa stands. Her head is bowed, eyes imploring upwards.

She still wants to hit Lexa. She wants to make Lexa hurt, to make her leave, to keep something between them because without something there will be _nothing_ and Clarke can’t afford that vulnerability again. It happened once, but Clarke can’t afford to make the same mistake twice.

Lexa is first to pull her hand away, casting her eyes to the ground, their shadows mingling in the flickering firelight.

Clarke’s hand does not move, and instead hovers in the dead space between them – forms a fist, unclenches, and then a claw. She has the tools to hurt Lexa. She has survived in the wild long enough, and her blood sings for retribution. With time her thighs have grown thick and muscled, days of walking and climbing and hunting priming them for attack. Clarke’s reflexes have improved, and even as she considers her opening move she is ready to parry. A feral part of her yearns to bite and claw and _taste_ the revenge she is owed, to take her dues with violence and lay waste to the body before her.

Lexa hazards a glance at Clarke once more before she turns on her heel to flee.

In this moment, Clarke knows that Lexa has the tools to destroy her too – and it is in the act of her leaving, deferring and submitting. It is in the things they do not say, do not do, and Clarke cannot let it come to that.

She failed to destroy Lexa once before, when she was so close Clarke could feel her pulse against the blade and her breath against her lips.

And _God_ , does Clarke _ache_ to feel that again.

The daunting part is Clarke doesn’t know which of those actions she wishes she had seen through to completion.

There is no command, no “ _wait_ ” this time as Lexa reaches the door. Clarke crosses the room in a heartbeat, and Lexa is not unprepared herself.

They are frozen once more, hovering in limbo: Clarke’s hand is on Lexa’s shoulder, half-twisted; Lexa’s secured Clarke’s wrist in a death grip. “Would you apologise with your last breath?” Clarke asks, words dripping with a desperate venom, as her other hand moves, closes around the column of Lexa’s neck.

Lexa raises her head in offering. “Not for the reasons you might believe.”

Clarke kisses like she is going to war and Lexa is no different. There are teeth clashing and lips bitten, blood drawn between them both, somewhere, a metallic bite the origin of which is unimportant. Lexa twists Clarke’s wrist, disarming the grip on her shoulder, but Clarke’s hand tightens on Lexa’s throat until she is sagging.

“You haven’t apologised.” Clarke releases her grip all at once and Lexa drops to her knees.

She drags in deep, desperate breaths. Her hands press to the stone floor, and Clarke feels it again – the thrum in her veins, the blood demanding blood.

Clarke fists a hand in Lexa’s hair, crouches down and draws her up so they are eye to eye. Lexa’s pupils are blown, her body pliant. “Forgive me, Wanheda.” Lexa’s raspy voice and swollen lips do terrible things to Clarke, and she is starting to realise what decision she would’ve made between the knife and the teeth.

They kiss again, and Lexa nips and bites, writhes against the fingers tangled in her delicate braids. Clarke pulls back on her harshly and Lexa moans, eyes closed and jaw hanging.

“I know how you might tempt me to forgiveness.” Clarke whispers against Lexa’s ear, drags her teeth across the line of her jaw and tastes the full-body shudder it draws forth.

“ _Ai laik yun_ ,” Lexa replies in that deep, torn-apart voice.

It is all the consent Clarke needs to pounce, pressing Lexa’s body to the cold, unforgiving tile of her room. It would take them a moment to walk to where a pile of furs and leathers lie, directly in front of the roaring fire, but Clarke likes the dig of stone against her knees and palms.

More than that she likes how Lexa falls apart beneath her. Clarke digs her nails into the flesh of Lexa’s thigh, hard enough to leave half-moon marks, the deepest of which fill with blood. “You’re right. You’re mine.” She whispers, hand winding around Lexa’s throat once more, fitting neatly over the developing bruises that rise there.

Lexa squirms underneath Clarke, her hips forcing upwards, begging. Clarke indulges her, slides three fingers inside Lexa with no warning. Beneath her other hand, Lexa’s throat moves, a silent cry playing out on bloodied lips.

Clarke is merciless, her hand slamming repeatedly into Lexa, giving her breath only when she needs it and snatching the luxury back before she can take advantage of it. Lexa makes a noise when she has the oxygen to spare that sounds so much like a sob Clarke feels her body betray her and she is frozen.

She wanted Lexa to hurt. She wanted Lexa to feel the pain Clarke had been carrying because of her.

Her hand stills, fingers enveloped in Lexa. Clarke’s moment of weakness is exploited rapidly, as Lexa slides out from beneath her body and sits facing Clarke, one leg still trapped beneath Clarke’s legs, the other folded. At any other time Clarke might appreciate Lexa’s power to dictate her powerlessness, her easily executed transition out of danger.

Lexa pants, ragged, her body regaining its strength. In her eyes, all Clarke can see is worry.

The tender fragility kills her. No one should look at Clarke like that.

“I’m sorry.” Clarke can’t bring herself to meet Lexa’s eyes now, her finger still warm and damp against her thigh, dress hiked up around her hips.

Clarke’s startled when Lexa’s hand brushes her cheek and immediately twists away from the contact.

“Clarke – I want this.” Lexa follows her, hand gentle and persistent. “I want _you_.”

Finally Clarke succumbs, lets Lexa hold her cheek as if she is something precious, something important, something to be treasured – to be _loved_.

The enormity of it is more than Clarke is ready for. It feels as though she has sentenced those at Mount Weather again to a torturous death. She is at the edge, terrified, but knows what she needs to do.

Clarke leans forward and presses her lips chastely to Lexa’s. She still tastes blood, but it is watered down now. It doesn’t bite, doesn’t carry the desperate quality from before. Instead they kiss slowly, softly, and Lexa thankfully ignores the tears that slide down Clarke’s face and between them, bring the lingering taste of salt and stained war paint.

Then slowly, very slowly, Lexa pulls Clarke to her feet. Their bodies stick together, wandering hands and experimental kisses to bare skin, until they sink down into the furs. Together they shed their clothes, the ornamental dress of the evening discarded, left to rest where it falls.

Lexa runs her hands over Clarke’s pale skin with reverence, drinking in the sight of her. Clarke is nude, but feels more naked than she has before with anyone else. There have been others – men and women alike – but none have wrenched her chest open and gazed at her soul the way Lexa does with a tender touch and careful eye.

“Do you want this?” Lexa asks, and Clarke knows what she means. _Do you want me?_

Either way, the answer is yes.

Clarke is calmer as Lexa slides down her body. She adorns the way with kisses – a peck to the top of her breast; a gentle suck on first the left, and then the right nipple; and then down to draw small bruises on pointed hipbones. Lexa starts with her hands on Clarke’s waist and slides down, over her hips and onto her thighs. Her fingers press into the tiger-stripe of stretch marks there, pale but present, as she noses the thick curl of blonde hair above her clit.

Lexa has a way with her mouth that Clarke has always admired. Her voice can be a knife-edge threat, sharp and unyielding, just as it can offer calm platitudes to the masses. Against her body, Lexa is firm and controlling. She wrests from Clarke her fragile sense of control, leaves her writhing and begging, one hand fisted in a plush throw.

“I want to taste you.” Lexa murmurs against Clarke’s folds, tongue everywhere at once, driving all rational thought from Clarke’s mind.

“I love you.” Clarke replies, and she wants to blame it on the wave of pleasure that envelopes her entirely. She is underwater for too long, her lungs burning again, yearning for fresh air, and in that sweet moment she can almost forget words said.

When she can finally see again, breathe again, feel again, Lexa is holding her cheek again. The smile on her face hurts – it’s a sunrise: it promises a scorching day but the light is worth it.

“Is that what you’d say?” Lexa asks, that smile too pure to come from someone who has so much blood on her hands.

Clarke is crying again, and she can’t pinpoint when it started or why it’s back. Maybe it’s true what Lexa said so long ago – maybe they do deserve better than just survival. Maybe Clarke deserves more than this, more than the guilt she carries every day, more than thinking she’s okay when she’s _not_. She killed so many people and she hurt _so much_ and she can’t fix it – and that really is the heart of it. Clarke can’t fix the mess she made, she can only try to move on and live with her decision.

But maybe she does deserve more, and maybe she should give herself that chance.

“Only if it’s what you would say.”

Lexa presses small kisses to her face, little touches of sunshine that warm Clarke through and help her forget. “I’d say it with every breath if given the chance.”

When they fall asleep that night, legs and arms intertwined, Clarke doesn’t dream of corpses. She dreams of a light chest and a rising sun and peace, and for all the blood on their hands at least their fingers are wound together.


End file.
